We have a series Customer Case Studies, in which we take your stories and share your challenges and successes as a learning tool for other RunSignUp users. This Ventura Marathon Case Study focuses on Self-Service Participant Management, Sponsors, and Club Discounts & Cross Promotion.
View the PDF Version of the Birmingham Track Club Case Study
Birmingham Track Club and RunSignUp
The Birmingham Track Club moved their Club membership to RunSignUp in June 2014, and have taken advantage of the opportunities to cross promote their Club and the races they put on.
About the Birmingham Track Club
BTC was founded in the 1970’s by local physician Arthur Black, as an attempt to improve the health and well-being of the people in his city. Today, they have 1,200+ current members with the mission statement:
The primary purpose of the Birmingham Track Club shall be the education and training of individuals in and around the community of Birmingham, Alabama as to the benefits of jogging, running, and walking for fitness, health and recreation.
We talked to Alan Hargrave, the IT Chair for the club, about their experience with RunSignUp Membership Management and Race Registration.
Membership Options
4-Tiered Options: All Memberships are set on a monthly duration, either for 12 or 24 months. They can choose from Individual or Family Memberships for One or Two Years.
Family Membership maximums were recently increased from 4 to 7 to allow for a few larger families. They currently have 1,257 active members under 988 memberships.
Coupon Codes for Discounts: BTC offers 50% discounts for Military, Students, and Law Enforcement. To do so, they provide coupon codes on their website and trust their members to use them honestly. To date, 55 members have used the coupon codes (4% of their membership).
Paper Applications: While there is a paper application still available on their website, most members use the online option. The majority of Paper Applications that they take at this point are from events (example: Mercedes Marathon Expo) that they are represented at.
“We decided to go with RunSignUp after recommendations from a few people, and a phone call with Bob Bickel. I felt good about the product: it is built upon something that felt like it had some sustainability. With technology, one thing I look at is if it is an evolving product, or a static one. It was clearly evolving.”
– Alan Hargrave, Birmingham Track Club IT Chair
BTC Races: Cross Promotion of Races and Clubs
BTC puts on 4 of their own races, includig a 1,600+ Vulcan Run 10K in the fall, and three smaller races (Adams Heart Run, Peavine Falls Run, and Statue to Statue 15K).
BTC offers a “BTC Race Series” package that allows runners with a BTC Membership to sign up for all 4 races at a deep discount. Runners who are not automatically detected by RunSignUp as having active memberships are prompted to become a member in order to purchase the package.
The parameters of their Series Option:
- Each BTC Race in the series is set up as a race in RunSignUp.
- The BTC Race Series is set up as a separate “race”.
- The BTC Race Series checks all registrants for membership in the Birmingham Track Club; if they are not members, it prompts them to become one in order to access the discounted registration.
- Because 2 of the races in the series have multiple event options (5K vs 10K, etc) BTC Race Series uses custom questions to collect data on which event the registrant intends to participate in.
- When Race Day comes, BTC exports a report from the BTC Race Series to include all participant information, including their responses to the custom questions about event preference. Those custom questions just become import fields for BTC to import all club series participants into each individual race.
The discounted BTC Race Series option is both an incentive to sign up more members, and an incentive to get current members to participate in their club-sponsored events, and they have seen membership growth since moving to RunSignUp.
More than Racing
Part of what Alan believes makes BTC so successful is that it is not just a running club or just a social club, but a little of both. A few other Sign Ups that take advantage of RunSignUp’s ability to check for membership status…
- End of the Year Party (non-members allowed; offers discount for members)
- Training and Social Programs (member only)
- 1200 Mile Club: An accountability and goal-setting program that offers a reward to runners who reach 1,200 miles in a year (members only)
- BTC Triple Crown: A Challenge to run in three area Half Marathons, with a t-shirt and prize for runners who complete the full Triple Crown (members only)
The club aims to promote a good healthy lifestyle through running. Beyond running, they offer training runs, social events around their training runs, kids festivals, attend a baseball game together, and more.
Widgets: Making your Club Website your Hub
BTC has developed a robust website with a wealth of information and a clean, easy to 
navigate design. It makes sense then, to keep their membership and racing traffic on their site. They use a number of widgets including:
- Registration Widgets for each of their club-hosted races
- Membership Widget for joining the club
- Registration Widgets for the 1200 Mile Club, the Triple Crown, and the BRC Race Series
With their collection of Widgets, BTC is able to keep people on their website – and provide more cross-exposure between their racers and their members.
“One of the things we’ve really liked is the widgets – they allow us to embed right in the website.”
– Alan Hargrave, Birmingham Track Club IT Chair
If you have a success story about your race, store or club, big or small, email us
…we’d love to explore a Case Study on your topic!